The slow-motion resignation of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is finally official.<\/p>\n
After months of plunging polls, lost by-elections and an accelerating caucus revolt, Trudeau deigned to throw in the towel on his unpopular reign after a new Liberal leader is chosen sometime in the next three months.<\/p>\n
Already there is chatter among Liberal loyalists that the new leader must shift the party to the right, with Global News\u00a0reporting that<\/a>\u00a0many party insiders \u201cbelieve Trudeau has moved the party too far to the left and that shift has played a key role in the decline of the Liberals.\u201d<\/p>\n But was Trudeau\u2019s problem that he was too progressive? His record on climate change hardly bears out that conclusion and Liberals looking for his replacement would be dead wrong if they believe Canadians don\u2019t desire strong climate leadership.<\/p>\n Though Trudeau promoted himself as a global climate champion, his results are far less impressive than his carefully crafted public persona. After nine years in power, his government is nowhere near the emission cuts required to meet our international commitment to cut emissions by 40 percent below 2005 levels by 2030.<\/p>\n The most recent\u00a0report<\/a>\u00a0by the country\u2019s Commissioner of the Environment showed that Canada would need to somehow slash emissions by 33 percent in the next five years to get back on track, and \u201cremains the worst performer among all member countries of the G7 since 1990 and 2005.\u201d Trudeau\u2019s ineffectual action on the climate file is one of the key reasons voters have soured so much with their once-glamorous leader.<\/p>\n Canada should have fared far better over the last nine years. Norway is also a northern oil exporting nation with an economy heavily dependent on fossil fuel extraction. Yet Norway was rated\u00a050 countries<\/a>\u00a0ahead of Canada in international climate rankings and\u00a0leads the world<\/a>\u00a0in electric vehicle adoption.<\/p>\n Recent\u00a0polling<\/a>\u00a0shows that most Canadians from across the political spectrum support moving faster on climate action, phasing out fossil fuels and embracing renewable energy. And despite enormous ad spends by oil companies, only\u00a035 percent<\/a>\u00a0of those polled said they had any degree of trust in what fossil fuel companies say.<\/p>\n Trudeau had a solid majority mandate in his first term and could have moved quickly to deliver on climate goals he campaigned on in the 2015 election. Canadians soon learned he was much more of a show pony than a productive work horse.<\/p>\n For instance, Trudeau\u00a0<\/strong>promised<\/a>\u00a0to \u201cphase out inefficient fossil fuel subsidies\u201d \u2013 an international commitment since 2009 that was largely ignored by his predecessor Stephen Harper. This sensible policy should have had broad appeal to voters concerned about the climate emergency, and those wanting to limit government waste and market intervention.<\/p>\n Polling from 2018\u00a0showed<\/a>\u00a0\u201cCanadians are strongly opposed to federal and provincial governments using public dollars to subsidize oil and gas companies.\u201d Five years later the\u00a0majority<\/a>\u00a0of British Columbians disagreed with using public money to prop up private LNG projects. A survey from last year revealed that\u00a0two-thirds<\/a>\u00a0of Canadians want swift action to reduce oil and gas emissions.<\/p>\n Despite this solid public support for bold climate results, Canadians instead got policy announcements with fanfare and photo-ops and very little action.<\/p>\n A 2017 auditor general\u2019s report on the newly elected Trudeau government\u00a0concluded<\/a>\u00a0that \u201cEnvironment and Climate Change Canada developed a plan\u201d to phase out fossil fuel subsidies. \u201cHowever, the department did not yet implement its plan.\u201d Meanwhile the department of finance simply refused to provide AG investigators with requested documents.<\/p>\n A follow-up investigation in 2019 concluded work to even identify fossil fuel subsidies was \u201cincomplete and not rigorous<\/a>.\u201d In 2023, Trudeau\u2019s government\u00a0re-announced<\/a>\u00a0its commitment to stop shoveling money at the fossil fuel sector, which that same year had reached\u00a0$18.5 billion<\/a>. In the preceding four years, over $65 billion in federal funds were dispensed towards oil and gas \u2013 enough to fund every major wind and solar project between 2019-21 twelve times over.<\/p>\n Tellingly, Trudeau\u2019s ascendency to the highest office in the country appeared to have the backroom blessing of oil patch power power brokers who saw him as a more palatable political player than his polarizing predecessor Stephen Harper. Shortly after winning the Liberal leadership in 2012, Trudeau\u00a0reassured<\/a>\u00a0an audience of oilmen at the Calgary Petroleum Club, \u201cKeep an open mind. You can find friends in the most unexpected places.\u201d<\/p>\n Late in the 2015 election that brought Trudeau to power, his campaign co-chair was forced to\u00a0resign<\/a>\u00a0when it was revealed that he was also advising energy companies on how best to lobby the incoming Prime Minister as a \u201cspear carrier\u201d for getting new pipelines approved.<\/p>\n This tight relationship between Trudeau and the fossil fuel sector helps explain high-profile moments of ill-executed hypocrisy. The\u00a0day after declaring<\/a>\u00a0a climate emergency in Canada the Trudeau government purchased the Trans Mountain Pipeline expansion (TMX) project, realizing the long-standing oil patch goal of transporting diluted Alberta bitumen to tide water.<\/p>\n A recent\u00a0report<\/a>\u00a0on this expensive boondoggle showed that inadequate pipeline tolls negotiated by Ottawa mean that taxpayers will likely be out of pocket up to $18.8 billion even after the project is sold. This works out to a gift of over $1,200 per Canadian household towards the highly profitable oil patch.<\/p>\n Trudeau billed purchasing TMX as a\u00a0nation-building<\/a>\u00a0project that would somehow lead to lower carbon emissions. This conceit was central to his engagement with the oil patch \u2013 get a pipeline built to tidewater in exchange for federal carbon pricing. Instead, he burned the support of voters concerned with the climate emergency while managing to become arguably even more detested in Alberta.<\/p>\n As\u00a0noted<\/a>\u00a0by energy commentator Max Fawcett: \u201cOne of the deepest ironies is that he\u2019s been the best Prime Minister for the energy sector in \u2026 basically ever \u2026 and they hate his guts for it.\u201d Meanwhile Trudeau\u2019s signature climate policy of carbon pricing has become so politically radioactive that even British Columbia Premier David Eby has pledged to punt the\u00a0provincial carbon tax<\/a>\u00a0in place since 2008 if the federal scheme is eliminated.<\/p>\n In fairness, Trudeau has several climate accomplishments like\u00a0climate accountability<\/a>\u00a0legislation and\u00a0draft regulations<\/a>\u00a0to limit oil and gas emissions. Yet these important policies have become so deeply entwined with his now damaged public persona that an incoming government may pay little political price to make them disappear.<\/p>\n